Chrome Apps lands on Mobile (iOS and Android)

Google's web-based application revolution continues as it announces expanding Chrome Apps reach to the mobile platforms (iOS and Android). The new innovation works with a developer preview of a toolchain based on Apache Cordova, an open-source mobile development framework for building native mobile apps using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

It follows on an earlier introduction of new version of Chrome Apps that works offline by default and act like native applications on the host operating system.

Analysts had criticized Chrome Apps as a "breaking of the Web", because of the restriction to Chrome environment, as Chrome Apps can't function without it. Hence, Google's opening up of the Apache Cordova "toolchain" for wrapping Chrome Apps in code native to Android and iOS.

The toolchain wraps Chrome App with a native application shell which then, enables developers to distribute their apps on Google Play and Apple App Store.

As the toolchain is in developer preview mode, however, improvements are expected in the coming months based on users feedback.